It’s back tonight. Sixteen episodes this season.
Damn it. I liked Herschel.
I’ll leave the in-depth reviews and nitpicking to others, but these are my thoughts:
Herschel was stupid as hell for not checking that body before stepping over it. Also, shouldn’t Rick have made sure there was a way to cauterize the stump before hacking off his leg?
Rick taking the can of dog food from Carl didn’t seem very smart. They need calories and protein, and I bet that the dog food was safer to eat than the owl that Daryl shot.
I liked that they addressed what seems like developing sexual tension between Daryl and Carol, even if it was with her joking about having sex.
Does it seem like Carl has a crush on Beth to anyone else, or was it just me?
Michonne already kind of annoys me with the katanas.
Wow, that one had me on the edge of my seat pretty much all the way through.
From a stylistic standpoint, loved the pre-credits sequence, with the crew wearily, wordlessly clearing a house.
The body-armored zombies were a nice touch.
Just my HO, but by far the best ep since the first season.
I hope we find out how they’ve been surviving in terms of gas, ammo, food and water for the last… 6 months or so, going by Lori’s pregnancy. Especially the ammo, since they have shown no qualms in the past about blasting away. No, especially the food, if the cans of dog food Carl was willing to eat was an indication of their food supply, and the fact no one seems to have suffered weight-wise.
Agreed. I was hoping there would be a bit of backstory in the first episode or two beyond general references to surviving through the winter.
And Herschel should have checked that dude, but it was a very high anxiety moment, in a hallway I think they’d been through already (?) so it slipped his mind. Sucks for him.
Good episode, worth the wait.
I don’t mean to sound argumentative, but why?
It’s (roughly) six months later. Rick makes mention of going house to house, so apparently they’ve been staying one step ahead of the walkers and scavenging supplies as they go. Presumably ammo is less plentiful than other supplies, so they’re low, especially since they’ve blasted away indiscriminately in the past. Daryl mentions hunting, so apparently they’ve been able to shoot the occasional wildlife here and there as well. Dwelling on how they got where they are apparently isn’t in the scope of the current storyline, and I don’t see a problem with that.
I’m more interested, actually, in what has occurred in Michonne and Andrea’s story, since Michonne is a new character whom we know little about and she and Andrea seem to have formed some kind of bond.
I wonder how long / if he’ll be able to survive without turning. They seem to have set him up as Lori’s counselor, not to mention obstetrician, so it will be critical (at least for her) to have him around.
I was thinking the same thing; they’re going to have to do something with that stump.
My opinion: Rick sees that as simply sinking too low; he’d rather go hungry than eat dog food (and yes, it’s stupid given the circumstances).
Not just you; I thought it was a bit reciprocal as well.
I agree. I understood the reasoning. I just thought it was dumb. I also thought it was a missed opportunity for the script writers to show how desperate they were. I was hoping he would pass the can around and everyone would eat from it.
Do you mean the scene in the cell? I interpreted that only as her acknowledging it, though I can see the other interpretation. It will be interesting to see if they go anywhere with it. I’d like to see the show become a real ensemble.
Maybe he’s just as confused as I am by the stated fact that everyone is infected combined with the witnessed fact that there are tons of just plain dead people laying around.
It’s certainly apparent to Hershel. 
Poor Hershel. 
I recognize that Laurie is stressed out and hormonal, but I do feel as though Hershel might have eased her mind by pointing out that fetuses and newborns have no teeth, or much in the way of fingernails.
Maggie’s stepping way the hell up in Andrea’s absence. I guess no one is in a position recently to bitch about her not ALSO doing laundry.
I loved everything except the sappy musical interlude. Not the sweet song around the campfire, I liked that, but the one that played on the soundtrack once they were in the prison. I hated it when the weepy song happened around the 54-55 minute mark in just about every single episode of “House” and I’m sad to see it invading this show. The fact that I know it’s there for cross-promotion purpose (“Download music from tonight’s show at iTunes.com.”) doesn’t help matters.
I’m not on Dish but my sister-in-law is. Anybody know a free legal way for her and others to be able to watch the upcoming episodes?
I distinctly remember thinking “What the hell with the music?” now that you mention it. Totally incongruous.
I almost made reference to hibernating zombies and how much I hate them, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen them and Rick even tapped the guard in the chest to make sure he was really dead earlier in the episode, so they know they exist, too. It’s cheap and stupid, but they’re a known danger and he practically (literally?) stepped between the walker’s legs. It was just a really stupid move, but then I’m not the person searching for his daughter in a dark, seemingly deserted prison full of zombies.
Also, I am watching the last bit of the episode while waiting for Talking Dead, and remembered another thing that annoyed me – how they were suddenly surrounded by walkers in at least three corridors when they apparently hadn’t passed any before. What the hell?
ETA: Herschel just got bit. He definitely walked right between the walker’s legs.
Which brings me to another nitpick; when they said “We have to go back for Maggie and Glenn, but which way?” I thought, “You might just follow the screaming and look for the door surrounded by agitated zombies.” Where the hell did the agitated zombies go? Since when do agitated zombies get bored and wander off that quick?
I suppose for me, the 6 month (or whatever-the writers haven’t bothered to tell us) jump is a bit too dues ex machina for my liking. We when last left our heroes, they were on the run with little food and a car running on fumes. So they went looting house to house, staying one step ahead of the walkers for 6 months? Why jump ahead? No other reason I can see other than fast-tracking Lori giving birth. Okay, but tighten up the writing a bit. If Rick won’t let Carl eat dog food, what have they been eating? Herschel talks about planting seeds. Did they bring any? What about water? Six months staying one step ahead of the walkers and no one thinks to put a sword/tire iron/poker through every walker in that jail, even the ones that appear “dead”? I know these are small things and most likely won’t matter at all in the overall story development (except for poor Herschel!), but it’s just (to me) indicative of sloppy writing.
The edits on the last few scenes were definitely jarring. There was no indication of time having passed, but the hallways were completely deserted, indicating it had probably been hours.
I liked it. They seem to be working pretty well as a team, in spite of their occasional lack of situational awareness, like Herschel not checking floor-walker, and getting bit for it. But in-character, he’s an old man and was worried about Maggie and Glen.
And I give them a pass on not looking all emaciated and wasted away; I don’t expect TV actors to go on extreme diets to add versimilitude to their roles.
I like that Carol is pulling her weight; no one in this group are poor, helpless emotionally fragile snowflakes.
Hell, he should have made sure the leg needed to be amputated before he just started hacking away at what was basically a really bad flesh wound.
Also, when they found their little sanctuary, I’m surprised no one in the crew noticed the (lit) flashlight.
I actually didn’t have a problem with having the leg hacked off. It makes a certain amount of sense. I just thought it was way too hasty.
What lit flashlight are you referring to?
Well, Jim and Amy got infected and died after getting bit in S1. As far as the flashlight goes, they were just a bit preoccupied.